Sarah, Mt. Moriah, and Prayers for Our Future

Parshat Vayera 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

When we consider the story of the binding of Yitzchak, one of the characters, who played quite a significant role until this tale, is conspicuously missing from the narrative. That person, of course, is Sarah.

In Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer, chapter 32, he notes the absence of Sarah from the tale, but also suggests that when Sarah heard about where Avraham and Yitzchak were going and why, she cried in a manner echoing the sound of the Shofar (this suggests we blow shofar in this memory, not for the mother of Sisera – which can easily be explained as a mistake in pronunciation, as the Torah Shleimah claims: it should be the cries of “Ema Sarah” not “Ema d’Siserah”).

Rashi, among others, attaches Sarah’s death to the news of the binding and sacrifice of her son. And yet, that is not the only interpretation, as the age of Yitzchak at this time is subject to debate as well. And if it is true that he was younger than 37 (his age at the time of his mother’s death) at his binding, then Sarah’s death would not be connected to the news of his near-death experience. This is the approach in “Yismach Moshe,”  in which the argument is presented that Sarah’s life was cut short on account of the way she treated her husband (and Hagar) in chapter 16.

It is interesting to note that the passage in Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer describes how Mt. Moriah became a significant hotspot for the patriarchal family after the day of Isaac’s binding. Rabbi Yehuda explains that after 20 years of infertility, Yitzchak brought his wife to the place he had felt closest to God in his lifetime, so they could pray. It was in that spot that Yitzchak prayed and was heeded to, so his wife could become pregnant. When it was time for her to give birth and the labor pangs were driving her insane, Rivkah went “to seek out God” at a pure place: Mt. Moriah.

And of course, Yaakov’s dream and prayer on his way to Lavan’s house are also credited with having taken place there.

It is incredible that Mt. Moriah became a place associated with prayer at such an early time in our history. And that most of the prayers mentioned here were aimed at securing the future through the next generation. Though she is not there, Sarah cries out for her son when he is there at that place. Yitzchak prays to have children. Rivkah prays that her children can be born and that she could survive to raise them. Yaakov is thinking about his journey ahead, but he knows he is looking to find a wife, which will hopefully lead to his having children.

One can make the argument that Sarah’s prayer really set the stage for the experience that turned Mt. Moriah into a place not just of sacrifice, but of prayer. Not only of prayer, but of the kind of prayer that gets and almost immediate response to those who seek out God in a sincere way.

Mt. Moriah may not be available as a place of prayer to us today (as we say, the only people discriminated against as an official policy, unrelated to security concerns, in Israel are Jews looking to pray on the Temple Mount) but it does not take away from the significance of that space, and of the important focus in prayer – focusing on the wellbeing of our children and of future generations of our people.

This is the guiding principle that governed Sarah’s thinking in Chapters 21 and 22, when she alone seemed to be the only one looking out for Yitzchak’s wellbeing (even though Avraham had other considerations driving him).

May we be blessed to remember why we live the lives we live. Whether we have or do not have children, we attach ourselves to the Jewish system in which we find ourselves, because we are hoping to serve as a model and to look out for the longevity of our people for generations to come.